Outdoor radiator, getting the heat outside

[curtaz11]

Rangerco
I have a universal XSPC gpu block if your looking for one?? I will let it go relatively cheap, comes with mounting screws (no barbs) I can throw in some ramsinks, glue (got it from Arctic to remount the ram sinks on my acellero sic) and a long sink with screws for VRM.
PM me if you're interested

Any idea when the EKWB R9 290 water blocks will be in stock? Also, the universal water blocks, they don't cover the RAM chips. How do you cool the RAM chips, just stick on heatsinks? I only ask because I have a few 7950/7970 radeons that are not reference boards, I think that I would be stuck with the universal blocks for those. All my R9 290s are reference boards, so I can use the full water blocks for those.

[Scruff40]

Actually I would run a good quality 3/4" oxygen barrier pex pipe , Rehau , Heat link, Wirsbo are all good quality . That's assuming that you don't have a pipe fusion tool . The biggest issue you would have with geo would be putting 1000' of pipe at least 6' to 8' down in the ground ( not sure of Edmonton's frost line) Here at 6' to 8' the ground temps remain about 55 degrees F and are not affected much by summer/ winter outdoor temps. Check with your city inspectors and find out how deep your water lines have to be in the ground and that's an easy starting point. Plus if you use geo you would need to pipe a buffer tank between the geo field and your computers (generally 10 gal per 1000 btuh)

[rangerco1]

Based on that, Geo is not going to happen. The frost line is very deep here, at least 8' and there is no way that my wife is going to let me backhoe the entire back yard to bury 1000' of geo piping, LOL. I will stick to my idea of outside radiators. I'm going to give it a go with one rig as a test and see how it works.

Any thoughts on the universal blocks, Acetal vs plexi? And rads, what's the basic requirement, single rad/device I'm guessing? What type of connectors does everyone prefer?

[gdesmo]

Frost line is 5 feet if clay and 5 1/2 with softer soils, this is a worst case scenerio with no snow as an insulating barrier and brutal cold winds from the Arctic coming down. 500 foot loop with an Ethylene glycol 50-50 mix would do just fine at about a 3 1/2 foot level, should be low enough to prevent pipe from shearing due to any frost heave. Use a large flat-plate heat exchanger to transfer the heat from the ground loop to the computer loop.

[rangerco1]

Any issues running fans out in the cold?

[Hooded]

Just protection from the weather

[gdesmo]

Thinking that maybe if it is a ball bearing design that it might be a little cranky if the small amount of grease turns solid on you. Also you may have to start them at full power as well but no other issues that I can think of atm.

[Scruff40]

Frost line is 5 feet if clay and 5 1/2 with softer soils, this is a worst case scenerio with no snow as an insulating barrier and brutal cold winds from the Arctic coming down. 500 foot loop with an Ethylene glycol 50-50 mix would do just fine at about a 3 1/2 foot level, should be low enough to prevent pipe from shearing due to any frost heave. Use a large flat-plate heat exchanger to transfer the heat from the ground loop to the computer loop.

I believe in Edmonton the frost line is about 8' (haven't worked there since the 70's) At 3.5' the loop would definately reject heat well in the winter, but with a flat plate heat exchanger you would be running close to freezing water temps on the computer side . I believe that somewhere around 14,000 btuh was being thrown around. 3.5' is not deep enough to not be affected by summer/winter ambient temps .

[gdesmo]

7 foot 2 in the city proper, 7 foot 6 in suburban areas, not debating that at all. Does not want to dig down that far, just saying there is alteratives, with heat exchanger in the house and temp controller on two pumps you could dial in any temp you want in winter and still have it cooler than ambient in summer. Of course 8 or 9 feet down would give you constant temp but would cost a fortune to dig and shore up for laying the grid down.

[rangerco1]

I think I've thought of an ingenious solution, please feel free to tear this apart. I'm sure this has to have been done before, but here it is anyway.

Central "large" reservoir, connected to loop1 going outside with pump and radiator in the loop only. Then loop2 connected to the same central reservoir with pump and waterblocks. My rational for this is that the water in the reservoir should reach equilibrium temp between both loops; one pumping in fresh cold water and the other pumping in warm water. The PC loop should always get decently cold water, but any below freezing temps should warm up in the reservoir thus preventing condensation on the water blocks. I can always add an aquarium heater to the reservoir if the water is too cold. Then I'm thinking that if I attach temp sensors and use the temp to control the fan speeds outside, they may or may not need to even run in the winter and can help keep the water from getting too cold.

Thoughts/comments?

[Scruff40]

You have a very doable idea here , a ground loop connected through a heat exchanger to a buffer tank and a couple of simple controls is definitely viable . you actually wouldn't need rads or fans either. Being a certified geo tech/installer I still have to stress the importance of digging the ground loop down as deep as possible . A general rule of thumb (I hate rules of thumb by the way ) is approx. 1000' of horizontal piping per ton of cooling (12000 btuh) In your case because of the temps you would be dealing with 2 300' loops would probably work fine. The piping layout to your water blocks could be done a couple of different ways .

[rangerco1]

I was actually thinking that the outside loop would be to a radiator/fan instead of the ground loop. I'm thinking car rad and fan combo from canadiantire for $140. There is no way that my wife will let me dig up the back yard to install that much ground loop. As for the radiator/fan outside loop, would it be better to have it isolated and use a copper pipe coil in the buffer tank or just have it suck water/antifreeze from the buffer tank and pump it out through the rad? I'm not sure which approach is better, basically have the loops isolated and have them dump/absorb heat through copper pipe coils and just let them share the fluid.

It was mentioned earlier that methanol would be a good antifreeze coolant, are there any other suggestions? I'm not sure that I'd be comfortable with that much methanol in an enclosed area (I'm told it's fairly flammable). I've found car antifreeze, both ethylene and polypropylene glycols and I've also found plumbing antifreeze that I think is made of ethanol. So it's probably not a great solution.

[MRDcanadian]

You could do a dual loop a little like the monster build of gdesmo, make one loop that takes the heat using regular coolant that links to a tec who exchanges it to another loop (outside loop) to cool down and use specialized stuff for winter (like methanol)?

[gdesmo]

Almost, but 3 loops actually. Gpu cooled by just a 360 rad, 5 x 480 to cool Tec's for cpu. Lots of heat buildup, but have a duct for dumping out the heat in summer. Lots of coolants you can use, just study viscosity, piping, pump configuration. mentioned a car rad in my first post.

[gdesmo]

BTW, you don't want to do a TEC build for cooling that load. Hydro bill would be nuttier than I am ! Meter would wear out prematurely as well !